WINDOWS: A BROKEN FAIRY TALE (3 page)

All of these
thoughts and emotions kept Sarah Petty awake until the small hours of the morning.
 
When she finally drifted off to sleep, it was
with a smile.

CHAPTER
2: A GAMBLE

           
The
sweltering heat hung over the city like a damp blanket as Raven walked up to
the smithy.
 
Shielding her eyes from the
glare of the mid-morning sun, the redhead looked into the shadows of the stall
adjacent to the building and spotted Sarah, hard at work shoeing a horse.
 
Her mind was a hornet’s nest of problems, but
the most pressing was if Sarah had decided to join her in opening a new shop
back in Valentria.
 
The second most
pressing was the message she had received from her ever annoying step-mother
this morning.
 
This was a simple business
trip and Elspeth knew it.
 
Cursing
slightly under her breath, she forced a friendly smile and hailed Sarah, who
turned, raising her hand in greeting.

           
“Good
morning, Raven.”
 
Sarah sat down the
hammer she was using and swiped a grimy arm across her forehead.
 
Despite the calendar promising it was early
spring, the humidity from last night’s storm made sure she worked up a
sweat.
 
Blonde hair clung to her cheeks
which were already dirty from the morning’s labor.
 
She decided last night that she was going to
take a chance on going into business with Raven but a trip to her landlord had
dashed that dream.

           
“Well,
not yet it isn’t but I hope you can change that.
 
You think any about my offer?”

           
Sarah
wiped her hands on the leather apron she wore wrapped around her waist, more
out of habit than necessity.
 
Raven
propped her elbows on the top bar of the stall and looked hopeful.

This is going to
be harder than I thought, Sarah sighed to herself.
 
She really wanted to leave, to get away from
this city and possibly start making some real money doing what she
enjoyed.
 
Mr. Jackson, the man who owned
the building she rented, pointed out the fine print in their contract which
said if she left before the lease was up, she would be subject to deadbeat
laws.
 
She tried everything she could
think of, even offering to pay for the next two months rent out of the money
Raven gave her last night, but the lecherous old man was intent on keeping her
around for only one reason.
 
He was
trying to force her to marry his son, an annoying little shrimp who had been
pestering her since their school days.

“I’m sorry Raven,
but my landlord won’t let me out of the lease.
 
I am thankful that you thought enough of my work to offer me the chance but
there is just no way I can join you right now.”
 
Sarah fished the money out of her right pocket and insisted on giving it
back.
 
Raven refused, calmly stepping an
arms length from the stall.

Just the landlord,
Raven chuckled to herself happily.
 
She
needed someone to go to the ball with her tonight and she liked talking to
Sarah.
 
Plus she could work out some of
the aggression she’d built up since her step-mother’s message.
 
“If the landlord is the only problem, why
didn’t you just offer him that money to pay off the rest of the rent?”

“I tried
that.
 
He said he would have me thrown if
jail if I left before the lease was up.
 
Now please Rave…”
 
The last word
died as she spoke and Sarah swore the temperature fell.

 
“Why would he be able to do that?”
 
Raven’s cheerful demeanor dropped for half a
second.

It took a
concentrated effort on Sarah’s part to suppress a small shudder. “It was
written into the contract.
 
I didn’t have
a whole lot of choice in where I sat up shop.”

The constant smile
instantly brightened Raven’s face, and Sarah welcomed it with a silent word of
thanks.
 
She hadn’t known this weird girl
very long but somehow got the impression that situations degraded quickly when the
smiling stopped.

“Let’s make a
wager.”
 
The woman in purple laughed.

Struck speechless,
Sarah considered things for a moment and asked what the terms were.
 
Raven smirked with a gleam in her eyes.
 
At that moment Sarah learned a valuable
lesson that would serve her well in the future; that mischievous grin was a lot
more troublesome than no smiles at all.
  

“It’s really quite
simple.”
 
Raven still looked way to much
like the cat that swallowed the canary for Sarah’s comfort.
 
“If I can return here in thirty minutes with
your contract annulled, you have to go to a party with me tonight.”

Sarah
blinked.
 
She hadn’t expected that but
for some reason was curious to know what Raven had was planning.
 
“Ok, so what do I get if you fail… when you
fail?”

Raven shrugged her
shoulders, “You get to keep the five hundred dollars and I’ll never bother you
again.”

Working things out
in her mind, Sarah couldn’t see the downside.
 
She was either about to be five hundred dollars richer or she was going
to be free from her contract and opening her own shop.
 
Either way she was getting something out of
this deal so she decided to take the bet.

They shook hands
over the railing and Raven asked where she was going and who she was talking
to.
 
Sarah gave her directions to Mr.
Jackson’s office, located in a seedier part of town, along with her copy of the
contract still stuffed in her pocket.
 
With
a final wave, Raven sauntered back into the bustling city like she hadn’t a
care in the world.
 
Sarah went back to
shoeing the horse.
 
Regardless of Raven’s
success, she still needed to finish this job.

After a short ride
Raven stood in front of a dilapidated brick building displaying a forlorn sign
which read, “Jackson
and Son’s Real Estate.”
 
Marching up the
steps, she was greeted with a host of cat calls from a small group of men who
were just as seedy as the neighborhood.
 
With a satisfied smile, she turned the knob and walked inside.
 
“This is going to be easier than I thought.”

The first thing
she did after walking inside, however, was wrinkle her nose at the smell of old
cigar smoke and rarely washed humanity.
 
Lights swung from fraying cords, their unnatural glare washing out the
colors of the interior.
 
A rug so old and
threadbare that parts of the wooden floor were beginning to poke through
coughed up small clouds of dust as she walked down the hallway, searching for
Mr. Jackson’s office.
 
She found it and
was immediately surer of her success than she had been previously.
  
A brightly polished plaque on a door that
was long overdue for a new coat of paint announced to anyone who cared that
Robert Jackson, Esquire, conducted business within.
 

Wiping the
cheerful smile off her face, Raven replaced it with what she figured a business
like stare looked like and knocked.
 
A
deep, rasping voice told her to come in, so she did.
 
It took every bit of will power she possessed
to not to start jumping up and down when she met Mr. Jackson face to face.

A man in his
mid-50s stood in the middle of the room.
 
He was large, about 6’3, Raven guessed as he turned and looked down at
the girl who had dared invade his space.
 
He would once have been muscular but years of paper wrangling turned it
to flab.
 
The graying man with thick,
heavy jowls wore a shirt that long ago turned from white to a dingy yellow.
 
Large sweat stains darkened the sides almost
down to his belt which struggled valiantly to remain intact while holding back
a rather large gullet.

Quickly Raven
scanned the room, taking stock of the situation.
 
The man wasn’t a threat and so of no
interest, but she needed to figure out how to proceed.
 
The desk, made of heavy oak, sat in the middle
of the room with random papers piled on top.
 
A high backed leather chair supported Mr. Jackson behind the desk, while
a smaller, wooden chair sat in front.
 
Two file cabinets rested against the far right wall and a coat rack
stood at attention near the door.
 
Thick,
brick walls made up the building and a small window facing a nearly identical
brick wall was barely visible past the man’s girth.
 
Raven bit the inside of her lip to keep from
smiling.
 
This room was almost completely
sound proof which allowed her a great deal more leeway in negotiations.

“What can I do for
you, little missy?”
 
Mr. Jackson, Esquire
leered, not even bothering to disguise the fact he was undressing Raven with
his eyes.
 
She briefly considered keeping
them as a memento but decided letting him remain sighted was a little more
important than parting gifts.
 
But just a
little.
  

Without being
asked, Raven sat down in a chair.
 
She
noted it was intentionally lower than the chair Mr. Jackson occupied by several
inches, meant to give the impression that whoever sat in it was beneath the man
behind the desk.
 
She wanted to get
things finished in a hurry because, by her timing, there were roughly 20
minutes to get this settled and back to Sarah.
 

“I am here to
inquire about buying out Sarah Petty’s contract with you, Mr. Jackson.”
 
Raven pulled the document out of her pocket
and laid it on top of the cluttered desk, right under the man’s nose.

“That contract
isn’t for sale, missy.”
 
The older man
laughed and flipped the contract back at Raven, who caught it with one hand.

“It’s Ms. White,
and I’m prepared to make you a more than fair offer.
 
Three months rent, plus the loss of the
deposit.”
 
Raven knew he wouldn’t give up
that easy but needed a few more details before they could get down to brass
tacks.

Mr. Jackson glowered
at the girl across from him for a minute, thinking to make her uneasy.
 
He knew her type, had known it the moment she
walked in his door.
 
A rich, university
educated snob that had probably never done a day of real work in her life.
 
The smallest threat would make her scamper
like a whipped cur.
 
“Missy,” he
blustered, “that contract is not for sale.
 
It wasn’t when that uppity girl came in here this morning, and it’s not
for sale to you.”

Raven let a look
of apprehension cross her features, allowing Mr. Jackson, Esquire think he was
in command.
 
She knew now how the
negotiations would end up, but wanted to have a little fun first.

Putting a finger
to her lips, she appeared to ponder things for a second before speaking.
 
“Mr. Jackson, there are legal channels we
could go through if you wish to fight this.
 
However, Ms. Petty wishes to honor the wording of the contract to the
fullest extent.
 
A recent opportunity has
manifested itself and she is looking to leave this city.
 
I ask simply that you take our more than
generous offer and allow her to depart peacefully.”

“The courts around
here aren’t going to listen to you, missy.
 
I’ve got friends in very high places you see.
 
There’s nothing a little brat like you can do
about it.”
 
Mr. Jackson sneered pompously
as he anticipated the girl’s dismay.
 
He
was sorely mistaken.

Raven’s right
eyebrow slowly crawled up her forehead.
 
Only
one person in the world was allowed to call her a brat and it damned sure
wasn’t this filth wallowing slug.
 
Still,
it’d be hard for him to annul the contract after losing most of his motor
functions so she didn’t follow her first impulse.
 
Instead she smiled at him with all the warmth
of a guillotine’s kiss.
 

“Thank you, Mr.
Jackson; I have learned almost everything I needed to.”
 
She hesitated briefly to let her words sink
in.
 
“First, I already know how the
courts work in Vestavia, my sister having dealt with them quite often in the
past.
 
I don’t think any of your ‘friends
in high places’ are willing to challenge me on this issue.”

Mr. Jackson sat
upright in his chair, his jowls flushing with anger.

“Second,” Raven
pointed to a coat-of-arms gathering dust on wall just behind Mr. Jackson, “Due
to that insignia I know that the Protectorate is backing you.
 
I was afraid you worked with someone who
would be a bother but those annoying twits are even less worrisome than the
courts.
 
Once Sarah and I leave, we’ll be
well beyond their reach.”

Mr. Jackson rose
to his full height, shaking in rage and slammed his fist on the desk.
 
Spittle flew from his lips as he sputtered at
this child who dared speak down to him in his own office.